The Chronicler's Web (TCW)

by DAN CALLOWAY
Published 3 March 2010

THE UNITED STATES – Offshore outsourcing (or offshoring) is defined as the relocation of business functions and structures to third-parties in lower-wage countries outside of the United States for the purposes of taking advantage of cost savings that can be realized (Sauer, 2005). Although the primary motivation for outsourcing programming projects is to take advantage of cost savings realized through lower-cost labor, another motivator for doing so is the flexibility and concentration on a corporation’s core business through the employment of skilled programmers where the talent available offshore is not as readily available domestically (Sauer). Therefore, to summarize, offshore outsourcing of programming work is typically accomplished for two reasons: (1) To reduce the cost of the programming project by hiring programmers in foreign countries, such as India, who are willing to work for less money, and (2) To acquire programming skills available in bigger job markets by including those countries outside the United States for specific skills that may not be available within the boundaries of the United States (Sauer).

Two methods of programming are the agile methods of XP (Extreme Programming) and ASD (Agile Software Development) (Kobayashi, Kawabata, Sakai, & Parkinson, 2006; Lindstrom & Jeffries, 2004). Kobayashi, et al. primarily discussed the agile method of XP through two case studies they introduced involving a selection from 13 XP practices gathered from interviews with developers. The goal of these practices was to define how to select the correct practices based on the programming scenario the reader might encounter. On the other hand, Lindstrom, et al. introduced the principles of the agile manifesto and tabulated several agile methodologies, including the agile method of XP but also included in his discussion the agile method known as ASD. Lindstrom, et al. sees especially XP as a means of solving many of the problems—in larger software development projects—that seem to haunt those projects, and offers an evaluation of the approaches used in XP as well as the underlying values of XP.

Using the agile practices of XP and of ASD constitute a means, especially with XP, to solve many of the software development issues encountered in offshoring because agile practices avoid upfront design, emphasize flexibility, a concentration on rules and documentation, and developing voluminous documentation found in other software development methods (Sauer, 2005). If offshoring, in this instance, could be accomplished, then it would be able to take advantage of cost savings (outsourcing) and the advantage of flexibility (agility) found in a larger market outside of the U.S. However, some issues with offshoring are found in the very principles of agile practices, which rely heavily on communication and feedback, and which requires a team of programmers who are collocated with one another and who have the ability to collaborate with the customer (Sauer).

Sauer (2005) has taken the initiative to analyze published experiences of AO – agile offshoring (agile practices applied to offshore projects), AGSD – agile global software development (agile practices used in globally dispersed software development), and DEP – distributed extreme programming (XP is used as the core agile process model). AO emphasizes the relationship and communication between unequally ranked teams and remote customers, AGSD emphasizes the geographical aspects of cultural and ideological differences, and DEP emphasizes the dispersement of teams, which have a direct effect on communications and coordination (Sauer).

Organizations should expect offshore firms to have competencies in ASD. However, the challenges that Sauer (2005) determined in their analysis of software offshoring that might adversely impact the effective use of ASD can be classified into four categories: (1) Individuals and interactions, (2) Working software, (3) Customer collaboration, and (4) Responding to change. Within the first category, communication is the main issue with offshoring since offshoring does not allow team members to sit together, collaborate with other team members, and resolve issues on a timely basis when they arise. Hindrances in communication often lead to the spreading of informal news, the lowering of team spirit, lack of common knowledge, and a departure from the shared vision of the team. As for the second category, offshoring has increased demands in the infrastructure and invariably this offshoring will lead to integration issues, issues with the testing of software, problems in quality assurance conformity, and issues with software configuration where something that works on one platform in the US may not work on another platform outside of the US. Customer collaboration is a necessity in agile software development where the programming team interacts with the customer quite frequently on requirements engineering and iterations of software development. Offshoring makes this next to impossible since the customer is often geographically distant from the team and the customer is unwilling or unable to send representatives to the offshore location. And, finally, a distributed team, as would be found when offshoring, can lead to problems with a host of project management issues. Among these are: (1) Progress estimation, where the project status is less visible and controllable; (2) Estimating efforts, where the developers not managers should be making these decisions but often the developers are not able to attend planning meetings, or on-site and offshore developers create diverging opinions about the amount of time and effort needed; and (3) Division of work is hampered in a geographically dispersed setting since offshore developers are typically less experienced in the application domain, especially in the beginning of the project, and must be constantly updated to continually involve them in the project so more and more tasks can be transferred offshore where cost savings can be realized.

Therefore, the agile practices of pair-programming, customer on-site, and planning game for extreme programming are directly impacted by offshoring (Sauer, 2005). Although these agile practices are adversely affected, Sauer suggests that if properly adapted and enhanced, they will continue to work in offshoring environments. The main issue with offshoring is the restricted communication between on-site and offshore teams and between offshore developers and the customer, and this is extremely important since communication and regular feedback form the basis for agility. The solutions to these issues are found in the substitution of communication through the technical means of video conferencing, telephone calls, and instant messaging, further supplemented by an occasional exchange of team members. Sauer has performed a case study which they believe will show that although technical substitution may be a solution at a higher cost, and, thus, may indicate that it is only affordable in larger projects, smaller teams can take advantage of offshoring in agile ways by avoiding the initial and running costs, and overhead by employing established practices and tools of software engineering to formalize and structure agile offshoring without losing the flexibility of agile practices.

Kobayashi, O., Kawabata, M., Sakai, M., & Parkinson, E. (2006). Analysis of the interaction between practices for introducing XP effectively. In Proceedings of the 28th international conference on software engineering (pp. 544-550). Presented at the Far east experience papers: development technique, Shanghai, China: ACM. Retrieved March 3, 2010, from http://portal.acm.org.library.capella.edu/citation.cfm?doid=1134285.1134361.

Lindstrom, L., & Jeffries, R. (2004). Extreme Programming and Agile Software Development Methodologies. Information Systems Management, 21(3), 41-60.

Sauer, J. (2005). Agile Practices in Offshore Outsourcing – An Analysis of Published Experiences. ECSCW 2005 Instructions. Retrieved March 3, 2010, from http://74.125.155.132/scholar?q=cache:_lkLfiz5n7cJ:scholar.google.com/+offshore+outsourcing+of+programming+and+agile+practices&hl=en&as_sdt=40000000001.